


The winter is cold and the night is long, so hold my hand and don’t let it go.

by 21stCenturyHero



Category: Persona 2
Genre: Assemble Cast - Freeform, Buddy comedy, Gen, M/M, Multi, No Spoilers, POV Alternating, SMT Secret Santa 2018, Social Anxiety Tatsuya, They/them Eikichi, passing mentions of homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 19:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17290421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/21stCenturyHero/pseuds/21stCenturyHero
Summary: December seems to stand in stark contrast to the summer months in Sumaru; while in August the cacophony of the cicadas threatened to drown the entire city, the weeks leading up to the start of the winter envelop it like a blanket, transforming the world in a place that’s seemingly quiet and still. However the city never sleeps, and its inhabitants will keep on living their relentless everyday regardless.Or;Jun probably should be a more social creature and Tatsuya struggles to ask a boy out on a date.





	The winter is cold and the night is long, so hold my hand and don’t let it go.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juntorii](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=juntorii).



> My entry in the 2018's SMT Secret Santa for @juntorii on Tumblr. I hope you enjoy it!

 

> **_December 11th, Saturday_ **

The evenings became colder as the year came to an end and Jun could already see his breath condensing into white mist when he stepped outside the school. Leaving the noisy indoors behind, he could see how the world at large was slowly becoming quieter in preparation for the coming winter, standing in stark contrast to the cacophony of summer; he didn’t miss the noisy cicadas in the slightest.

It would be beautiful, really, were not by the fact that he forgot his scarf.

“Damn,” he cursed in a low voice as the cold wind hit him and shoved his hands on the pockets of his coat, wiggling his fingers in an attempt to warm them up. At his side, Michel struggled to put a muffler around their silver necklaces and Jun side-eyed them with a little bit of jealousy. “Please hurry,” he begged, jumping on his heels to get his blood pumping. “I’m freezing.”

“Hold on, Miyabi gave me this, if I end up tearing it she’s going to cry,” they said, giving the piece of cloth a couple of methodical tugs so it would fall into place properly and then proceeding to spend way too long fixing it so it would look stylish. “Also, I don’t want to ruin my makeup.”

“ _Michel, please_.”

“Geez, aight _boss_ , coming.”

Jun let out an annoyed noise that was more for theatrics than anything and Michel laughed heartily as the teens went on their way. It was a quick walk from Kasugayama to Sumaru Prison, but it was clear that the streets of Hirasaka were emptier than the usual due the lack of aimlessly wandering teenagers wearing the same cyan uniform as them; apparently most people were smart enough to stay indoors or go straight home in that cold.

Jun and Michel weren’t most people, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

“But man,” Michel said while they searched their pockets for the keys to the live house. “December arrived in a flash this year, didn’t it? It feels like summer vacations were yesterday.”

“Do you really think so? I feel like the year really dragged for me.” The boy allowed himself to rest against the wall of Sumaru Prison for a second while his friend struggled with the keys. Michel was humming something to themself; the new music they were working on, maybe? What was the title again? Luv… Something. God, he really needed to talk to Michel about the names of their songs. “It’s… weird. It’s going to be a new millennium, so I suppose it’s natural to be anxious, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is going to happen.”

“Like what?”

The door opened with an ominous creek and the two high schoolers stared into the pitch black darkness. Jun took the first step, anxious to finally get out of the cold winds outside, even if it meant taking refuge in the slightly decrepit live house, and Michel followed soon after. Honestly, how did they managed to get permission to hold band practice there?

“I don’t know,” Jun admitted as they climbed downstairs. The clanging of their shoes against the metal staircase stopped being creepy and started to sound familiar and comforting sometime during the last few months. “An evil corporation experimenting with demons so they can attempt world domination but it somehow backfiring and going incredibly wrong, bringing forth the end of times as the result? An ancient deity deciding that the best way to judge the worth of human existence is to give three straight men incredible powers and watch what they do with it? God somehow starting to think that maybe capitalism was a good idea and assisting some random politician with his nationalist agenda?” He shrugged. “Take your pick. Many possibilities.”

From the floor, Jun turned to look at Michel at the top of the stairs, who stared at him with eyebrows raised and a perplexed look on their face.

“…holy fuck, Ginko is right, you _do_ mope a lot.”

 

———

 

Tatsuya wouldn’t be there for another half a hour, maybe more if Lisa and Hanakouji decided to tag along, and there was no reason for them to start band practice without him, so Jun and Michel resigned themselves to slouch on the couch and try not to eat all the snacks before he arrived. Jun considered pulling out his homework and maybe even offering to help Michel with theirs if only to pass time, but the next day was going to be a day off and these things could wait a little longer since they were obviously very busy with something way more important.

Namely, shaming Jun.

“You have all these apocalyptic predictions, but have you thought about Christmas at all? It’s at the end of the month, you know.” Michel said, pointing the potato chip that they were currently holding at the boy in an accusatory manner. It took a while, but Jun finally managed to convince them to indulge in some snacks, even if it was to nibble at some jagariko; Michel would often times go without eating, and it worried him to no end. “You have a boyfriend now! Shouldn’t you be more excited for things like this?”

“Uh.”

Truth be told, he probably put way too much thought into that. In his ideal scenario, he and his boyfriend would’ve saved enough money to go to somewhere a little more dignified than your local fried chicken place and shared a nice dinner together, maybe holding hands under the table or letting their fingers brush so slightly while they enjoyed their food so nobody would notice it, and if anybody called attention to two guys going out during Christmas, they would come up with a ridiculous story about being dumped by their girlfriends and laugh about it in a more private setting later, where they could be totally open with their affections. Maybe Jun would take Tatsuya for a walk in the nicer parts of Sumaru so they could see the Christmas decorations, or they would ride slowly through the city on his bike while watching the lights pass fast by. In his mind, it would be an overall pleasant evening, but no matter how he thought about it, he kept hitting the same roadblock.

“I was thinking about going out with Tatsuya, but…” he let out a long sigh and stared intently at the half empty candy package on his lap like it contained all the answers. It didn’t. “It just doesn’t seems fair to Lisa.”

Michel stopped eating their jagariko for a second to look confused at Jun with an eyebrow raised and their mouth half-full. “How so?”

“I mean…” the boy scratched the back of his neck, taking a second to put his feelings into words in an intelligible fashion. “I have Tatsuya and you have Hanakouji-san, so… aren’t we kind of abandoning her? If she doesn’t has a date she’ll most likely spend the break with her family, and I can’t imagine her _liking_ it.”

“Oh.” Michel’s eyes went wide and they blinked slowly as they finally understood what Jun was trying to say, and he couldn’t help but think of a owl. “Yeah, that… that surely sounds like garbage. I would hate to spend the holiday with my pops.”

He nodded. “That’s why I think I won’t be going out with Tatsuya; if Lisa needs him to pretend that he’s her boyfriend for her to avoid her family, she can do it.”

“And are you alright with that?”

“Of course.” Jun clenched his fists around the candy bag. “She’s my friend.”

Michel tilted their head to the side, looking at him clearly unconvinced and maybe a little annoyed. They sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose, and put aside their package of jagariko, waiting a couple seconds before speaking.

“Listen, man, couldn’t we just… spend Christmas together?” They asked, genuinely heartfelt. Considering that their entire group had the approximate emotional intelligence of a grape, it always amazed Jun how much Michel cared; for him, empathizing with people, actually _empathizing_ and being able to fully comprehend their feelings, was almost an impossible chore, but Michel did it naturally and effortlessly. “Like, the five of us?”

Jun simply stared at them for a long second and then laughed, half amazed and half bewildered. Yes, _yes_ , that _could_ work even if setting up would most likely end up being a complete _nightmare_.

He turned to his friend with the widest grin possible. “Michel, you beautiful sexy blue giraffe.”

 

> _**December 13th, Monday** _

For the first time in forever, Suou Tatsuya was allowed to enjoy the blissful silence. Even if his classroom was fuller than usual because literally every single living soul in Sevens High collective agreed that staying indoors was a better idea than trying to venture outside in the cold, everything felt quieter than it should be, which honestly made it more all the worrying.

Instead of the usual back and forth between Hanakouji and Ginko that he had grown used to in the last few months, Hanakouji just cheerfully ate her lunch in silence, with short breaks to offer Tatsuya some of her food or comment on something noncommittal while Ginko had her face firmly planked on the desk, groaning loudly every time the other girl directed her the word.

It was weird how much Tatsuya’s routine changed in such a short span of time, at least for him. Maybe in the summer he would’ve been happy for the silence, but now it was a change of pace that bothered him deeply. He took a deep breath and raised his voice.

“Ginko?”

Just as he expected, her answer was a short, annoyed groan. Tatsuya then turned to Hanakouji.

“What’s wrong with her?” He asked, maybe a little too straightforwardly.

The girl slowly finished chewing her food and he couldn’t really tell if he was reading too much into it or if she was stalling for time. Finally, Hanakouji simply shrugged.

“Oh, you know. It’s that time of the year.”

He really didn’t. “So, uh… seasonal depression?”

As an answer, the girl hummed for a bit. Yeah, she was definitively stalling for time, either in order to allow Ginko to intervene as she saw fit or just looking for the right words; Tatsuya could almost see himself physically stepping on toes. “Probably also that.”

Apparently that was enough for Ginko though; with an angered noise, she straightened her posture and banged her fists on the table loudly, making the trio’s lunchboxes rattle. Her brow was furrowed in annoyance and she had on the same expression that she usually wore when she was about to snap; Tatsuya would be lying if he said that she wasn’t scary.

“It’s not that!” She complained, voice roaring and just as annoyed as she seemed. “It’s Christmas! Christ~mas! Don’t tell me that you forgot!”

He did.

“ _Tatsuya!_ ” Both of them exclaimed, scandalized.

  

> _**December 14th, Tuesday** _

Jun wished that Michel would use their powers as the Death Boss for evil sometimes. “Evil” being managing to bail him out of cleaning duties, but Michel was considerably nastier than that; no, they would bail _themself_ out of cleaning duty and watch as Jun suffered because they really hated to break a sweat but had a “moral code” or whatever that would draw the line on things that didn’t ruin their eyeliner.

He sighed, wiping his brow and turning his face to Michel without ever stop working.

“Don’t you have anything better to do other than watching me clean?” The boy asked in an obviously fake tired tone as he took the last of the trash out of classroom and put it in blue plastic bags. There was a huge grin on his friend’s face and he suddenly feared for the answer.

“Nope, not at all!” Michel said, promptly and way too cheerfully. “C’mon, hurry! We gotta talk Christmas, loverboy!”

Jun groaned in defeat and grabbed the garbage bags, shoving one in their chest for them to carry and gesturing with his head for Michel to follow as he led the way. As they crossed the school and reached the incinerator outside, his friend merrily babbled on about their plans for the winter break.

“Where exactly will we be celebrating? If it’s Christmas, it has to be fried chicken, right?”

“If that’s the case, Peace Dinner would be the obvious choice considering our budget, but…” he hastily pushed the garbage into the incinerator and extended his hand to Michel, grabbing the remaining bag. “What about you? What are you going to eat?”

“Ah, I could just not…”

The boy closed the incinerator’s door with more strength and fanfare than necessary, interrupting his friend before they could finish speaking.

“Oh, absolutely out of question,” he said with the widest, friendliest grin he could manage. “We’re going somewhere with vegetarian options, even if I have to cook it myself. Any other ideas?”

Michel put on their meanest “kicked puppy” pout, but Jun’s smile was unfaltering and only a little bit threatening. The gang boss sighed in defeat and dropped the facade.

“Well, since you mentioned it… we _could_ cook ourselves. We would certainly save money doing so,” they tapped their chin a couple times before realizing they were holding literal garbage only a few seconds ago; Jun could swear he heard a little ‘ew’ as Michel frantically cleaned their hands on their pants. “I mean, Miyabi will be coming, so I’m sure that the three of us would be able to do it, right?”

“Oh, so you talked to her already?”

“My, of course!” Michel had a wide smile on their face and their eyes sparkled with the mention of their girlfriend. “We had a date on Sunday! A da~te~! She was seriously so cute! You should’ve seen her!”

They sighed dreamily and all the commentaries about young love that Jun could possibly make sounded like an old man speaking. He laughed at his underclassman, and wondered if he looked even remotely similar when talking about Tatsuya.

“Well, that’s great!” He said with a smile on his face as they walked back indoors. “But… we still need a place. And if it’s the five of us, hosting it in one of our houses won’t be enough.”

It was Michel’s turn to grin with way too much confidence in themself. “Don’t worry about that, the great Michel has us covered! If we host a small concert in Sumaru Prison, we can provide both entertainment and food to our lovely guests! It would be the full package, and we could even invite more people!”

“You’re using this opportunity to hog the spotlight, aren’t you?”

“You bet! So, do you know any Christmas carols?”

  

> _**December 15th, Wednesday** _

As the track club’s meeting came to an end and several high schoolers exchanged numerous “thank you for all your hard work”s between them, Tatsuya quietly slipped away so he could watch his peers from afar. He always disliked his inability to _get_ people, but while it was combined with a general lack of interest in other human beings, he supposed it had been _fine_. Now, however…

“Senpai?”

Tatsuya could feel his heart hitch with the scare and instinctively clenched his fists before forcing himself to relax. He turned his face to stare at the girl Katayama Noriko, completely disoriented; where did she even come from?

“Are you alright?” She asked with something that he thought was concern on her face. He was vaguely aware that he had been spacing out while lost in thought, but not for how long. He blinked, trying to ground himself before answering.

“Ah.” The boy chewed the inside of his cheek and averted his look, trying to think of something coherent to say. Alright, human interaction, that was happening. Or rather, it was even worse; human interaction he didn’t have a script for. “Yes, I was just…” just _what_ , Tatsuya? God, why are words so _complicated_? “Thinking.”

Nailed it.

“Riiiiight.” The girl fidgeted by shifting her weight from one feet to the other and he mirrored her, unsure of what to do and with his anxiety gnawing at him, making his fingers instinctively seek a lighter that wasn’t in his pocket; he still was wearing his tracksuit and his zippo lighter was kept in his locker during practice, so he had absolutely nothing to stim with to dissipate the nervous energy that started accumulating and pressuring him. Both of them spent an uncomfortably long minute staring at their shoes until Katayama turned her back to Tatsuya, and before he could cherish the fact that he thought he was going to be left alone, she raised her voice. “Found him!”

He heard a pair of feet turning a corner and approaching fast, making his anxiety rise to his throat in a suffocating manner. Tatsuya took a couple steps to the left to watch as Yoshizaka Anna came in his direction and stopped by Katayama’s side, eyeing him with a judgmental gaze. He was considerably taller than her (and to be fair, Tatsuya was considerably taller than a lot of people), but it honestly didn’t matter; Anna carried herself with such pride that she towered over most people, regardless of their height.

“Tatsuya.”

“Anna.”

The godly mask of dignity crumbled as Anna let out an annoyed sigh, allowing her shoulders to drop and shifting her posture to something more casual, shoving her hands on her tracksuit’s pockets and tilting her head to the right. “What am I going to do with you?”

With the stoicism out of the way and Tatsuya’s anxiety mostly gone with it, he allowed himself to smile a little around his friend, despite keeping his gaze fixed somewhere above her shoulder and avoiding the unbearable eye contact. “Hopefully nothing too brash?”, he suggested, mostly joking.

“Oh, you wish,” Anna replied with laughter.

She knew him well enough to know that staring would only make him uncomfortable, so she followed his eyes into an unfixed point of the horizon instead. Katayama looked at both of them in confusion, but she also understood on some level; she also had way more common sense than Tatsuya and Anna combined, so she tugged her sleeve and pointed to the school with her head. Anna just nodded in response.

“Well, Tatsuya,” she said in a casual tone. “Why don’t you come with me?”

 

———

 

Flip open. Close. Flip open. Close.

With the lighter back on his pocket, the fog in Tatsuya’s brain dispersed. He met with Anna in the entrance hallway, where she waited for him while watching the last few stragglers still around Sevens for club activities walk by. As he approached, she turned her head to him and went to his encounter.

“Where’s Katayama?” He asked while looking around. Tatsuya hated to feel skittish but he also hated to be surprised, so he paid more attention to his surroundings than usual and the extra effort was more difficult to maintain than it should.

Anna shrugged, either unconcerned or, most likely, unaware of his feelings. “She went to buy you a drink, so you better be grateful.”

He simply nodded in acknowledge before realizing that he probably should be more polite than that. “That’s… very kind of her,” he hurried to say. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“You were spacing out during practice,” she told him, guiding him to the corners of the hallway so they would stay out of the way. “I mean, more than usual. Is everything alright?”

Oh, that. Right. “It will sound silly if I explain it.”

“Why don’t you try?”

He took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to put his weird brain into words. “Do you ever feel like you’re an NPC in a video game, and that you only have a couple few scripted lines of dialogue that you use to get through pretty much your entire life?”

“…no?”

“I’m… trying to say something that wasn’t scripted, but I have no idea _how_. And it isn’t just a matter of talking either, it’s a whole process that ends up being way more complicated in my head than it should actually be because my brain insists in breaking it down in several smaller tasks, and breaking it down again, and again until they’re as small as _blinking_.”

He stopped to catch his breath; that word vomit was probably more than Tatsuya spoke the entire week. He focused on the cold hard metal of the lighter against his palm; flip open, close, flip open, close, repeat until the mess of feelings slowly dissipates. Anna blinked slowly, staring at him mildly bewildered.

“…wow.”

“ _Yeah_.”

It was in moments like those that Tatsuya appreciated the fact that Anna was just as awkward as him. Ginko and Eikichi were touchy and Jun was wordy with their attempts of make him feel better when he needed it, but they had at least some vague idea of what they were doing, and while Tatsuya appreciated their effort, sometimes nothing was more comforting than seeing another person who also had no idea of what they were doing in life.

“If it’s so hard to you, why are you even trying?” Anna asked after a while.

“Because it’s for _Jun_ ,” Tatsuya explained. Apparently only that was enough for her to understand it, but he inhaled sharply and kept going: “I want him to have something nice for once, you know? Do for him the same he does for me. But turns out I have no idea _how to ask a boy out on a stupid date._ ”

“That’s… incredibly sweet of you, Tatsuya,” she said, almost impressed; he could see the corners of her mouth curving slightly upward in a small smile. “But I’m kind of amazed that you’re suffering this much to ask him out. I mean, it’s not like you have any sort of impulse control.”

He groaned and she laughed until he started chuckling a little as well. At least he was getting better at this whole friendship thing.

“What are you even going to do on Christmas’ Eve, by the way?” Tatsuya asked in an attempt to divert the attention from himself. Anna looked at him and made a noncommittal noise.

“That’s a great question. Hey, Noriko!” She called for the girl who just appeared in the hallway carrying drinks. She took a while, did she cross the entire school to get that? Nevertheless, she hastened her pace and came to Anna and Tatsuya’s encounter as fast as she could.

“Yes?”

“What do you want to do for Christmas?”

Tatsuya watched as her face went red; the girl’s mouth opened in a small “o” shape and a very soft “oh” escaped her lips. She bashfully lowered her eyes and stared at beverages she was carrying, swinging back and forth on her place.

“Ah, well… as long we’re together, anything is fine with me, really,” she told Anna, her voice a few tones higher than usual.

Tatsuya got to see one of Anna’s rarer smiles; it was warm and full of tenderness, spreading slowly on her face until dimples showed up on her cheeks. She came off as harsh most of the time, but it was understandable why Noriko loved her so much; she was strong and determined, but also kind and loving.

Anna put her arm around Noriko’s shoulders and turned to Tatsuya, now smiling in _defiance_.

“See? I got you a script. Now go ask your goddamn boyfriend out.”

  

> _**December 16th, Thursday** _

Lisa had started to hang out with the newspaper club whenever she wasn’t with Shibata or Ogishima a few months ago, which turned her into even more of a creature of habit than she already was. Jun teased her about it a couple of times by reading the horoscope for Taurus loudly for her to listen, always resulting on her pinching his cheeks and both of them laughing at it. They thought of it as a joke, but right now, Jun was extremely glad to know where was the most likely place to find her, even if it meant third-wheeling Michel on their date.

Just like every other building around Sumaru, the Peace Diner in Yumezaki Center was bursting full of people who were trying to escape the cold streets. He didn’t blame them; even with gloves, Jun frequently kept his hands in the pockets of his coat as to ward off the annoying freezing sensation climbing up his fingers, to the point that Michel accused Tatsuya of rubbing his cool bad boy attitude on him, which he just laughed at.

The girls were sitting on a booth at the back of the restaurant, where they chatted merrily and lazily snacked on their food. However when the two Kasugayama students approached, the talk died momentarily as they turned to them and realized that Michel somehow managed to drag along Jun.

“Look who decided to tag along! Miracles _do_ happen,” Michel announced loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear; meanwhile he just waved his hand.

“Hey.”

Their shocked expressions really hammered home that Jun probably should be a more social creature.

“Kurosu!” Ueda, the one with the most tolerance for weirdness out of the trio, was the first to recover. She gestured at him and slid on her seat, pulling Lisa’s arm to make some space for him on the booth. “We didn’t know you were coming! C’mon, sit down!”

He was quick to shake his head. “Oh, no, I’m just passing by! But it’s good seeing you, Ueda-san, Hanakouji-san.” He put on a polite smile that hopefully would let him get away from this situation as fast as humanly possible. “However, if it would be possible, could I borrow Lisa for a second or two…?”

“Well…” Lisa exchanged quick glances with Ueda and Hanakouji, but her gaze lingered a second longer on Ueda. She then nodded her head. “For me it’s fine. Lead the way.”

 

———

 

“I hate how right your horoscopes are sometimes,” Lisa said as soon as they were out of their friends’ earshot, standing in front of Peace Diner and watching people pass by. Yumezaki Center wasn’t nearly as crowded as the interior of the restaurant, but it still was fuller than the actual streets of the ward. Jun wondered how many of them were shopping for Christmas.

“Why?” He asked in a fakely innocent voice as to tease her and wiggling his eyebrows for good measure. “Had any luck in love lately?”

The girl laughed in an awkward manner, shoving her hands in her pockets. “You could say that. So, what do you want?”

“Oh, me and Michel are trying to organize a concert during Christmas’ Eve and we’re wondering if you wanted to come,” he explained, turning his face back to the passersby. “Well, they call it a concert, but it’s actually a small gathering and Michel will end up singing some Christmas carols.”

He could practically _feel_ Lisa grimacing at his side. “Yeah, sounds like them.” She crossed her arms and rested her shoulder against a nearby wall in order to stare at Jun. When he looked at her, she had an expression on her face that he couldn’t quite decypher; anxiety, maybe? “Who else will be going?”

“So far? Michel, Hanakouji-san and me,” he said, counting on his fingers. “I have yet to talk to Tatsuya, and Michel mentioned inviting Yoshizaka since she and Tatsuya are friends, so if she accepts, her girlfriend is probably tagging along.”

“Wait, Yoshizaka? _The_ Yoshizaka?” Lisa blinked as if she wasn’t really believing in what he just said. “Don’t Eikichi and her _hate_ each other?”

“Well… hate is a strong word, I think. It’s more like they barely tolerate each other since they’re constantly vying for the same person’s attention; Tatsuya’s, Mayazumi-san’s…” He stopped for a second to think and winced as well. Oh, fucking Scorpios. “So… yes, they hate each other.”

“Oh, this is great.” There was a huge grin on her face when she said that, albeit it was short lived; Lisa quickly dropped the smile in favor of a more serious expression, and Jun definitively could see her nervousness now. “Well, if this many people are coming, would you mind if I invited someone?”

And then it clicked for Jun.

“Ueda?” Lisa nodded quickly, her face blushing and shoulders tense. “Are you two dating?”

“I… I honestly don’t know,” she admitted and that situation felt all too familiar to Jun. He was hit with both misplaced nostalgia and pity at the same time, and desperately tried to get rid of the latter feeling; Lisa wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Yeah, in the beginning things can be like that. Don’t worry, though, it’ll be fine, I promise.” The boy ended up offering her a kind smile and squeezed her shoulder anyway in an attempt of cheering her up. “So, can I wait for you two?”

It took a while for Lisa to answer him, but she had a small smile on her face when she did. “Yeah. Yeah! What the hell, why not? It’s going to be just us anyway, and I know I can trust you guys.”

  

> _**December 17th, Friday** _

He had one last thing to do now.

The same stillness present in Hirasaka at the beginning of the month started to spread to other wards and Jun was just fine with that; he enjoyed walking alone and losing himself in the city, but his ever-present anxiety wouldn’t go away as long as he was surrounded by the faceless crowds. However, Regendai suffered considerably less from the slowing down that came with winter, maybe due its privileged position at the center of Sumaru, and as he crossed the bridge that separated the ward from the rest of the city, he saw several more people flocking nearby Lotus than there were in Yumezaki in the previous day.

Jun checked his clock. He hated crowds, but it wasn’t like he was running out of time.

 

———

 

He realized way too late that maybe he made a mistake

Jun liked to _walk. Running_ , however, was an entirely different business.

He hastily shoved the package under his arm and sprinted the last remaining blocks that separated the mall from Sevens High with his feet hurting the entire way; his shoes absolutely weren’t made for that and he was sure he got at least a couple of ugly blisters out of it. Jun fully recognized it was his own damn fault for getting distracted by the new age section of the bookstore, but _fuck._

It was only when the boy finally saw the school’s gates that he allowed himself to slow down and catch his breath. He leaned against the wall for a second and closed his eyes; he was at least a couple minutes early, he could…

“Are you dying?”

Jun yelped, turning around and finding himself being faced by someone he got to know well in these past few months.

“Yoshizaka-san!” He said breathlessly. She didn’t seem very impressed with his current state, staring at him with the face of scrutiny and judgement; he was more than aware that his hair was a mess, of the sweat was making his undershirt stick against his skin (ugh, _gross_ ) and _ow his fucking feet —_ “Hello!”

Yoshizaka was a… difficult person for Jun to deal with, to put at least. With strangers he could always pull the polite act, while with friends he was more casual and would crack jokes, but Yoshizaka seemingly would have none of that and he had no idea who he should be in order to please her. He never knew what persona to assume, and as a result, every interaction with her felt like walking on eggshells.

“Are you skipping class to come see Tatsuya?” The girl asked in a flat tone of voice. She didn’t seem too annoyed, only disapproving. He bit his lip and put on his polite smile, sincerely hoping for the best.

“Maybe.”

Yoshizaka sighed and rested her back against the wall with him, seemingly resigned to keep that interaction going. “Please, try not to be too much of a bad influence on him. If he stops coming to club practice again, I _will_ blame you.”

“Ha…” Scary, but alright. Club practice. He could work with that. “So, how’s the track team? Are you still going to practice?”

“Yeah, they allowed me to stick around as a manager,” she said with a shrug, and the noncommittal tone of her voice changed a little; there was pride there, and for the first time ever, he thought that maybe he would be able to have a friendly conversation with Yoshizaka without fearing for his dear life. “Sometimes I still go for a run when I have the patience to hear my physiotherapist complain about me not taking rehabilitation seriously, but I mostly help to train our new members.” She sneered for a second and Jun couldn’t really blame her, but soon she was back to something that sounded like happiness. “It’s good; Noriko quit worrying, I get to stay with the club and I can keep an eye on Tatsuya like this. Life finds a way, I suppose.”

He nodded. “That’s very mature of you,” Jun told her, letting go of the wall and straightening his posture. She hummed in acknowledgement, and he thought he could see her smile.

That reminded him…

“What are you doing on Christmas’ Eve?”

Jun realized only way too late that he probably just gave Yoshizaka about three thousand reasons to punch him.

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

He didn’t think she looked angry per say, only incredibly baffled; Jun probably was the last person Yoshizaka expected to ask her that, which was fair.

“Ah, I mean…” he put his hands in front of his body; both as a way to ask for peace and to protect himself if things went south. “Me and a couple friends are trying to organize a Christmas party and I’m going to invite Tatsuya, and since you two are friends, I thought…”

She let out an exasperated huff and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t _believe_ you’re the second guy this week who asked me that. I swear, if I didn’t know you…”

Jun wasn’t going to lie; he could only imagine the face of the poor loser getting rejected, and it was hilarious. He had to fight the urge to laugh. “ _I’m so sorry._ ”

“Don’t worry about that,” Yoshizaka said, waving her hand nonchalantly. “You’re looking for Tatsuya, right? He’s probably the bike racks, trying to get that old motorcycle of his to work.”

He eyed the gates, from where students started pouring out after the end of their club activities. “Can I just… go in?”

“Yeah, we got used to you Cuss High people walking around like you own the place since Tatsuya started hanging out with your Death Boss.”

“…once again, I’m so, _so_ sorry for that.”

For the first time on that afternoon, and quite possibly for the first time since they met each other, Jun saw Yoshizaka laugh. “And once again, _don’t sweat it._ Geez, you apologize too much, has anyone ever told you that? But I guess you’re not as bad as I initially thought.”

Jun let go of his plastered smile and exchanged it for something more sincere. “Thank you very much. Should I take that as a compliment?”

Again, she shrugged. “Take it as you will.”

“And what about Christmas?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be there.”

 

———

 

Tatsuya loved his motorcycle, he really did; however, sometimes he was thoroughly convinced that it was an entirely one-sided thing, that it actually hated him and that they probably should see other people because their relationship clearly wasn’t working out. Maybe he should start looking into newer, better models that wouldn’t already be falling apart when he bought them.

— oh, who he was kidding? He didn’t have the money or the heart to let go of that old thing.

The noise of his tinkering and the intense concentration he put on his task completely blocked out the rest of the world, keeping him in a comfortable bubble where only him and the bike existed. He wasn’t by any stretch good at repairs, but Tatsuya greatly enjoyed being able to focus in one single thing like this, to the point where everything else just dissolved into static.

It was only when his fingers got so cold that they started to hurt that Tatsuya forced himself to stop and unpleasantly snap back into reality. As he wiped his brow, the world slowly came into focus again; the sky already was a deep purple, slowly transitioning from the bright orange of the sunset to the dark blue of the nighttime, and the bike racks were mostly deserted save him and someone else, who patiently waited resting against the wall and with a package tucked under his arm.

“Jun.”

There was a soft smile on Jun’s face. “Hello, Tacchi.” He tilted his head to the side and a few strands of hair fell from behind his ear. “Do you want help with that?”

“You don't need to,” he answered automatically,  more out of habit than anything else, and Jun knew it; he approached Tatsuya and kneeled by his side, taking off his gloves and accepting the wrench and tool box that was offered to him after carefully setting his parcel on the ground. “Thank you.”

“Oh, it’s no problem! Now, let’s see —” the boy tapped his lips with brow furrowed in concentration as he examined the engine of the bike. It took almost a full minute before Tatsuya heard him exclaim “ah!” softly and resume the tinkering where he left off.

He sat down on the dirty ground, just watching as Jun did his magic with fingers more nimble than Tatsuya could ever dream to have. There were things he wanted to ask, but it didn’t sound right to interrupt the boy’s workflow; the two of them were peas in a pod, birds of a feather, and he knew that Jun was just as far away as he previously was, but that was alright for Tatsuya. He smiled to himself and enjoyed the moment of peace and quiet.

Jun eventually lied back, letting go a drawn out breath. The smile on his face was still there, together with a smudge of grease on his forehead, and Tatsuya could feel his heart skip a beat when their fingers brushed; he didn’t take long with the engine and the sky barely changed color, but despite how Jun was previously wearing gloves, his hand was so much colder than Tatsuya’s. He couldn’t help but to intertwine his fingers with the boy’s, trying to warm him up.

“Thank you,” Tatsuya repeated, squeezing his hand. “You walked all the way here?”

His answer was a short laugh. “Sorry for not telling you, I wanted to make a surprise. Is that alright?”

“Of course, but I could — No, no I couldn’t. I probably would stay here the whole night trying to fix the bike, wouldn’t I…?”

If there was one thing that Tatsuya took pride in, was his ability to make Jun smile — _really_ smile; he loved watching that demure and bashful expression melting into a large and goofy grin that showed his teeth and made his eyes wrinkle, something actually _genuine_ and not a mask that Jun put way too much effort in maintaining.

“You should have more faith in yourself,” he scorned in a joking tone while grabbing his gloves and his package. After he stood up, Jun offered a hand to help Tatsuya. “Alright, can you start the engine? Let’s see if this worked.”

Tatsuya nodded when taking his hand and complied, and when he turned the key, the motorcycle roared to life.

 

———

 

“Do you need to head straight back?” Tatsuya asked as Jun made himself comfortable behind him on the bike. “There’s somewhere I would like to take you first, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, no! Not at all! Actually, I was hoping we could spend some time together.”

With his heart on his throat either because of his anxiety or because Jun’s arms were tight around his waist, he nodded and closed his visor. “Alright. Perfect.”

 

———

 

The Aoba Ward wasn’t exactly on their way home, but Tatsuya once heard a rumor that the flowers on the park could talk and when he mentioned it to Jun, it made him laugh.

“It would be wonderful if they really did, wouldn’t it…?” He said dreamily. “Maybe if they could, they would finally answer me.”

Tatsuya knew that there wouldn’t be flowers blooming at this time of the year, but Aoba Park sounded appropriate. He discussed the idea with Ginko and Hanakouji previously, and they both seemed to approve.

_“But aren’t you putting a little too much effort into this…?”_

_“I feel bad about forgetting Christmas until now,” he feebly tried to excuse himself to Ginko. She sighed and Hanakouji giggled._

_“Well, I think it’s cute!” She assured him, giving him a hearty shoulder squeeze. “Good luck, Tatsuya!”_

He didn’t think a lack of “luck” was the biggest of his problems, but he probably would need it.

Tatsuya slowed down as they crossed the ward, allowing for them to take a better look at the Christmas decorations. It already was dark enough outside for the lights to be on, and a tiny voice in his head screamed that this was a terrible idea and that he probably should turn back now and go straight home because they could get in trouble, but the delighted whisper of “pretty!” coming from Jun behind him instantly shut it up. A warm feeling rose on his chest and spread throughout his entire body, and Tatsuya couldn’t stop his smile.

He could do this.

It was easy to find a place to leave his bike; the park was cold and deserted, and Tatsuya used it as an excuse to stand close to Jun. There was a long moment of silence where they just stood around; Jun eyed him, puzzled, but other than that he didn’t ask, and Tatsuya could never appreciate his patience too much. He bit his lip and took his partner’s hand; there was no one in sight, so they could allow themselves a small moment.

Aoba Park always was a labyrinth, but losing himself in it alongside Jun didn’t sound too bad.

They wandered aimless, side by side with the unspoken pretense of keeping the other warm. The park was completely different from what Tatsuya expected: winter wasn’t there yet, but it didn’t matter; most of the plants were already dead or dormant, and the lush greenery of summer were replaced by the muted brown of the occasional dying leaves. The late hour elongated the shadows produced by the streetlights in an eerie manner, making them crawl across the floor and dominate every twist and turn of the path, sinking the park in a black inky darkness that seemed all the more unfriendly when the gusts of icy wind made the tree branches sway and the shadows shift, but Jun didn’t seem too bothered; his grip around Tatsuya’s hand was relaxed as he drew small circles on it with his thumb and hummed a melody under his breath, stopping every once in a while to lick his lips. When Tatsuya turned to him, his eyes sparkled just like they did when he saw flowers in full bloom and the sun high in the sky, as if he could find beauty in the dead plant matter and in the creepy dark corners.

“See in spring what you saw in summer, huh…?” He mused more to himself than to his companion. Tatsuya furrowed his brow.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh,” Jun blinked, realizing that he actually said that outloud. With his free hand, he rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly bashful. “It’s a book I read once. It goes more or less like this; ‘See in spring what you saw in summer, see during the day what you saw during the night, with the sun where the rain once fell; see the fields green and the harvest ripe, the stone that changed place and the shadows that weren’t there before.’ Beautiful, isn’t it?”

He didn’t think he could agree with that, not when talking about the park, but on the lighter in his pocket was engraved “what is essential is invisible to the eye” in butchered English. Tatsuya didn’t understand it at first, but thanks to Jun, he thought that he was starting to get it; Jun who held himself with shoulders and posture straight and was always wearing an expression that was somewhere between impassive and welcoming, but if you knew him well enough you could see hints of both mischievousness and genuine worry in his face; there was one crease on his brow due a slightly raised eyebrow that probably would be a wrinkle by the time he was thirty, and the corners of his mouth curved up like it was a joke only he understood. Ah, his mouth. It seemed like no matter how much chapstick he applied to it, Jun’s lips were always peeling from him picking on his skin. He was at the same time both loud and quiet, brilliant and somber, and all these things were a part of Jun, even if he tried to run away from most of it.

Maybe the same was true about the Aoba Park, showing a difference face under different circumstances.

“Well, I guess this takes care of autumn and night,” Tatsuya said because it was the first thing that came to his mind. Jun allowed himself to laugh at it, and because they were alone, he didn’t hold back under the pretense of politeness. “We should come here again when it starts to snow.”

“We should!” Jun agreed with eagerness and a large smile on his face. “We should see it all together; the snow, the heat, and when the flowers bloom!”

Tatsuya could feel his ears getting hot, so he focused on Jun’s hands instead, as they seemed to be the one part of his body that he couldn’t work to the bone to look prim. His nails were barely a stub due his constant biting and small bruises covered his skin again thanks to Jun’s picking habits, but he didn’t attempt to hide it like with his face. His fingers weren’t slender and graceful but rather bony, spread out and thick from playing the piano, and they slid between Tatsuya’s with ease, which was all that mattered. Jun was a disaster who tried to project outward a glimmer of his more competent features; it wasn’t a false reflection of him, just a carefully crafted facade made of polite words and pleasant smiles that he used to cover up everything else. Tatsuya was the same, always pretending to be a better version of himself; not something _fake_ , because their actions were just as part of them as their secrets, but not the whole story either.

_What is essential is invisible to the eye_ was only half of the quote; _it is only with the heart that one could see properly_ was the ending. He was glad he could face Jun’s glaring flaws under his mask, and he loved him all the more because of it.

His breath hitched. He could do this.

“Please, go out with me!” Tatsuya bursted; he would explode if he thought about it another second. It took a heartbeat for him to realize that he couldn’t possibly be vaguer, and he hurried himself up to explain. “…On Christmas! I mean on Christmas’ Eve, we’re already going out, I…”

He let out a strangled noise and hid his face with his hands; ah, how he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. At his side, Jun laughed and patted his head in a soothing manner.

“Of course!” He answered amidst his giggles and Tatsuya changed his hiding spot to the curve of Jun’s neck. “But I can't believe you beat me to the punch again. I’ve been trying to ask you out the entire week.”

“I’m sorry…”

“No, no. I’m incredibly happy!” Tatsuya could feel the boy looking around for passersby, and once he made sure they were alone, Jun ran his fingers through his hair, tucking it behind his ear. Maybe Aoba Park being creepy, dark and deserted was a blessing after all, because Tatsuya wasn’t sure how he would survive the embarrassment otherwise. “Do you have anything planned?”

“I do, but…” He begrudgingly let go of Jun and attempted to get his act together, trying to stand straighter than he usually did and feigning a dignity that he did not possess. The boy was painfully aware that his face was burning red. “We can do whatever you want before it.”

“A surprise?” Tatsuya hummed in confirmation and Jun clapped his hands. “Oh, now I’m curious! Michel is organizing a small Christmas party, maybe we could go together? And then we could do what you have planned.”

“…They’re using this opportunity to hog the spotlight, aren’t they?”

The boy let go a tired sigh, and a little bit of his disposition seemed to leave him. “Yes, basically.”

“Ah, sounds like them. Well,” he shifted his height from one foot to the other, and on the depths of his pocket, he found the comfort of his lighter. “I could give you a ride to the party on the 24th, if you want.”

There was a smile on Jun’s lips and Tatsuya couldn’t help but think that he looked incredibly handsome in the low light, with the streetlamps shining on his face softly and the wind messing with his hair. “Sounds perfect.”

  

> **_December 18th, Saturday_ **

“Who are you and did you do to Tatsuya?” Were the first words that Anna said to him as they exchanged into their indoor shoes.

“Hmmmm?” The boy was fully aware that he had a goofy smile on his face, and the corners of his mouth started to hurt sometime yesterday after he got home, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop grinning.

“Fucking asshole has a date on Christmas,” Lisa explained in a tired voice, barging in their conversation without a care in the world. Anna chuckled in amusement.

“Wow, it only took you forever. Watch out for the grin, though. Your face might break.”

“Geez,” Tatsuya huffed, shoving his sneakers into the locker. “Thank you. I’m also very happy to not be third-wheeling you this Christmas’ Eve.”

“Wait,” Lisa stepped between them, eyeing Anna with desperation. “It’s not possible that you also have a date, right, senpai…?”

“Oh, I do. Got one before Tatsuya, actually.”

She groaned. “Assholes. All of you.”

 

———

 

“You could probably catch Ueda before homeroom starts if you run,” Anna suggested in a fakely innocent voice that Tatsuya heard Jun use way too often. Lisa gestured in an indecent manner at them, but after some hesitation, she took her upperclassman’s advice.

“I hate you two,” was the last thing she told them before sprinting away, and even that couldn’t shake Anna’s amused expression.

All things considered, his classmate was in an unexpectedly good mood that morning. She turned to Tatsuya. “Well, I’m glad for you, all things considered. Joy to the earth, yadda, yadda.”

“Ah, I probably wouldn’t have done this without you, so thank you again,” he said with a small nod of his head. “Jun said you also are going to Eikichi’s party, is it true?”

“Yes, why?”

He grimaced.

Tatsuya was almost sure that some day, Anna and Eikichi would end up trying to kill each other; Jun explained to him that they acted that way due their possessive and passionate nature as Scorpios when he shared his woes, but Tatsuya also felt that he wasn’t exactly helping by throwing salt on the wound and two-timing them with the track club and band practice. Jun laughed, stole a French fry from his plate and looked at him with that wonderful mischievous smile of his on his face.

_“Well, Mr. Suou, aren’t you quite the charmer?”_ _  
_

— and then Tatsuya screwed everything by saying something incredibly cheesy as a reply, something like “you know I only have eyes for you”. It made Jun blush and laugh even more, which was definitely worth it, but it made Tatsuya regret his entire damn life anyway.

But back to the present.

“Nothing. So, shall we go?”

 

———

 

“So that leaves us with Ta-chan, Ginko, Miyabi, Yoshizaka, her girlfriend, you and me,” Michel counted on their fingers.  “Seven people. Is that right?”

 “Eight, Lisa is inviting Ueda,” Jun said without taking his eyes off his notebook. Winter break couldn’t arrive soon enough. “I still can’t believe you made me invite Yoshizaka. Will you two be alright?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He sneered. “Yeah, sure.”

  

> **_December 19th, Sunday_ **

Tatsuya wasn’t really sure for how long he stared at the door. Anna accused him of having no impulse control, and it was true that sometimes he completely lacked a verbal filter; however he also was particularly prone to overthink things, which paralyzed him and rendered him unable to move.

In fact, he had been staring at that same goddamn door since Monday and he was about to give up.

He closed his eyes. Screw it, he had a plan and he was going to follow it through. Tatsuya knocked twice on the wood, maybe with a little too much strength.

“Brother?” He called, unsure and tentatively. “Could you help me with something?”

  

> **_December 20th, Monday_ **

Jun would be lying if he said that he wasn’t dreading his last week before the winter break started. He did his best to both keep up and help Michel with their schoolwork, but he wouldn’t really rest until after Christmas was over.

“Decorations, ingredients, food… ” He made a checklist as he spoke, knowing full well that they wouldn’t get anything done unless they had a guideline.

At his side, Michel groaned. “There’s so much to dooooo.”

“Whose idea was this again?” Jun chewed on the tip of his pen, taking a quick break from writing to stretch his body. He rocked on his seat, trying to unwind. “Well, no use worrying about food this soon, so I guess we should start decorating. We already took care of shopping when we went to Yumezaki, but…” He eyed at the boxes that they littered the ground of Sumaru prison with and sighed. “…I really hope that we didn’t forget anything, the commercial centers will be bursting full this week.”

“You’re right…”

“Well, I’m no good with crowds, so I’ll be leaving the rest of the shopping to you~!”

“What!? Bastard! At least come with me!”

  

> **_December 21st, Tuesday_ **

— and despite all their worries, winter started without much ruckus.

It was kind of a let down.

  

> **_December 23rd, Thursday_ **

“I can’t believe you waited until the last possible second to buy a gift!” Katsuya told him scandalized as Tatsuya basically jumped downstairs, motorcycle keys in hand. “What sort of boyfriend are you!?”

“It’s not like I had time before!”

“What were you doing, then?”

Procrastinating.

“ _Tatsuya!_ ”

  

> _**December 24th, Christmas’ Eve** _

He tapped his fingers on his bike’s handlebar in an odd rhythm, trying to somehow disperse the anxious energy that started to build up within him. Tatsuya looked up to the cloudless sky while waiting for the traffic light to go green, and he was honestly surprised that lightning didn’t strike him down where he stood. All in all, it was a pleasant day; the wind blowing from the ocean had lessened to a mild breeze and the sunlight was strong enough to fill him with warmth, which didn’t seem to be the sort of thing that his luck would normally allow, but he wasn’t complaining.

The light went green and he accelerated without thinking twice, leaving the intersection behind in a flash.

Streets and wards and names mingled and blurred as he crossed the city, as it was impossible to take it all in; the silence that Sumaru displayed during autumn was gone, as if spring had started instead of winter, and the cacophony of the festivities was everywhere. The lights, decorations and jingles assaulted his eyes and ears, and even if it wasn’t all bad, it made him feel overwhelmed.

Well, at least it strengthened his conviction in his plans for Christmas.

“Tatsuya!” Jun called and went to his encounter, waiting for him on the same street corner where they would always meet. He carried himself in a casual way, shoulders relaxed and a small grin on his face. “Hello!”

Tatsuya smiled at him with fondness. “Hi.”

_Christmas._

He was celebrating _Christmas_ with his _boyfriend._

“Ah!” The boy had what presumably was the same package as before tucked under his arm, this time decorated with pretty red and gold wrapping paper. He fumbled and offered it to Tatsuya with a bit of uncertainty on his face. “Well, this is a first, so… Should I give this to you now?”

His smile turned into a laugh, and the tension in Tatsuya’s shoulders peacefully went away. “I’m just as clueless as you. Let’s… wait and see, I suppose.”

“Well, sounds like a plan.” He accepted the helmet that was given to him and climbed on the back of the bike; when he hugged Tatsuya from behind, his hands rested over his heart. “Are you ready to go?”

“With you? Always.”

 

———

 

“— by the way…”

“Yes?”

“Why do you smell like chicken?”

“…ah, about that—”

 

———

 

Crossing Sumaru made him realize how the year went by fast.

Hirasaka, which previously was a place that Tatsuya mostly ignored, was now a corner of the city that he knew like the back of his hand thanks to Eikichi and Jun’s combined effort. He was dragged through it and forced to drive them up and down that ward, to the point that he got to know its ins and outs in less than six months. They passed in front of Kasugayama while on their way to Sumaru Prison and seeing the school grounds empty was probably the weirdest experience Tatsuya ever had, considering how much time he spend near it thanks to his friends who studied there; he could remember that one time when Jun called it “K'ass-u-gay-ama” and no one in their group could actually prove him wrong. He snorted.

They arrived before sunset and maybe Jun’s stupidly good luck was rubbing into him, because finding parking spots in Sumaru was easier than ever.

— or maybe it was just Tatsuya’s inclination for finding himself in places that no other sane human being would like to be in, because the street in front of the live house was as empty as Kasugayama due people looking for nicer places to spend their Christmas’ Eve in. He wanted to think it was a mixture of both.

Jun hopped off first while his partner turned off the engine and, with the corner of his eye, Tatsuya watched as the boy removed his helmet. He probably couldn’t force himself to admit it outloud, which meant that someday he would spill it in the most inappropriate way and moment possible, but he found Jun’s messy hair incredibly charming.

He turned to Tatsuya and offered him a gloved hand with a wide grin on his face.

“Shall we go, my dear?”

He smiled back bashfully and took it. “I still don’t know how you can say that with a straight face.”

Jun laughed and together they went down the empty street.

 

———

 

For something that two broke teenagers put together in their spare time, the decorations inside Sumaru Prison were surprisingly competent.

Eikichi brought up the flair that only a high schooler who was into visual kei but didn’t have the money to indulge in it could bring, while Jun probably was the one who kept their most gaudy extravagances in check. As a result, the Christmas lights were too cheap to be impressive under normal circumstances, but in the natural dimness of the live house, their weak glow was just enough to look cozy.

As they climbed down the stairs, Tatsuya could hear the voice of his friends talking on the floor below them and his heart started to annoyingly fast in anticipation. Jun intertwined his fingers with his and gave Tatsuya’s hand a soothing squeeze.

Right, social interaction. _Friends._ He could do that.

“They’re here!” Hanakouji announced merrily and a couple of “hi”s and “how are you doing”s immediately followed. As expected, the party was mostly an excuse to get together, but Tatsuya could see that a lot of effort was put into it: between convenience store-bought snacks and the cooked dishes, the table that was dragged to the center of the venue was bursting full of food; the couch also was dragged around, and by its side there was about half a dozen gift bags, probably courtesy of Ginko; and at a corner there was a shitty plastic Christmas tree, made considerably less shitty by the careful arrangement of decorations. Tatsuya suspected that Jun was behind that one, taking into account how many of the adornments were flower-themed.

“Jun! Tatsuya!” Eikichi greeted them, immediately abandoning the radio that they struggled to tune in to go give them an enthusiastic welcome followed by pats on the back. “Come on in!”

“Lively as ever, huh?”

They laughed and guided them to the table, where they sat on a chair by the side of the couch; Hanakouji, Ginko and Ueda shared the sofa, which left the two boys on a seat near Eikichi. Ueda took the abandoned radio on the table, and in a matter of seconds, a pleasant Christmas-y foreign pop song filled the live house.

“So! What do you think?” They demanded to know, leaning on their elbows. “Impressive, right?!”

“Very,” Tatsuya agreed, nodding quickly. He turned to Jun. “It’s amazing you and Hanakouji managed to cook this much food.”

“Oh, Michel helped a lot.”

“Chopping vegetables?”

The boy blinked. “Wait, don’t you know? They can coo—”

“ANYWAYS!” Eikichi interrupted, waving their arms around. “Aren’t there more interesting things to talk about? Like how Ginko won’t be ending up as a Christmas Cake!”

“What?!” The girl exclaimed scandalized, and at her side Ueda giggled. “Just because four of you found your soulmates or whatever at the tender age of seventeen it doesn’t means everyone has to! Asshole!”

“Well,” Tatsuya chirped in. “You did third wheel an awful lot.”

Ginko groaned and threw the gift bags at Eikichi and Tatsuya, much to Eikichi’s delight. They gracefully dodged the one aimed at them, while the boy was hit square in the face with considerably less strength than he anticipated. “Oh, I love having rich friends,” they hummed at his side.

_“Jerk!”_

Tatsuya opened his bag while Ginko and Eikichi went back and forth. She got him a pair of motorcycle gloves, the sort that was comfortable and somehow expensive, but apparently not too expensive for her. He smiled to himself, filled with fondness, and it was almost good enough to ignore the fact that sometimes dealing with his two younger friends was like herding cats.

_Almost._

“God, I forgot how you bunch were _noisy_ ,” someone complained from the top of the stairs before closing the door behind her. The imposing voice and the cold wind accompanying the girl and her partner was enough to momentarily shut down the conversations on the floor below. “Don’t you ever slow down?”

The boy shoved his new gloves on the bag as every single head on the room turned to Yoshizaka Anna and then to Eikichi. Everyone in the group save Ueda winced, preparing for the upcoming storm, and Tatsuya sighed before getting up to greet her.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, you get used to it after a while.”

 

———

 

So the party was going _great._

The food was genuinely some of the tastiest that Tatsuya had in a long time even if it was simple and it took about thirty minutes before Anna started trashing on Eikichi’s band, which meant that the evening was progressing peacefully; he let his head lazily rest on Jun’s shoulder and watched the discussion that was entirely his fault unfold, while also totally refusing to get involved in it.

“You don’t even have a drummer?” The girl asked, an eyebrow raised in judgement. “What sort of self-respecting rock band doesn’t uses drums?”

“Well, it’s not like I know anyone who can play them!”

“ _I_ can,” she told them with smugness and bite on her voice.

— and there was a glimmer on Eikichi’s eyes that Tatsuya _instantly_ recognized; they scooted closer to the girl. “Do you now?”

Ginko sighed, Jun snorted and Tatsuya ate more chicken, all three of them knowing exactly where that was going.

 

———

 

Jun eventually grabbed his keyboard and tried his hand at playing Christmas carols; some he knew by heart while others were a clumsy attempt to imitate what was on the radio. Eikichi managed to convince Tatsuya to give it a try as well, and soon the live house was filled with the offkey singing of eight tired high schoolers.

The conversations and dumb jokes that they exchanged carried them through the evening, even when they broke into smaller groups; Eikichi kept pestering Anna to at least _try_ to play drums with their band someday, Hanakouji and Katayama chatted excitedly about their clubs and upcoming school events and Ginko and Ueda acted as a stereotypical young couple, or at least what Tatsuya thought of as one; when he looked at them, he saw himself painfully reflected on the two girls as they hesitantly reached out for one another, afraid of testing their boundaries but pushing through anyway. That’s how love was for them, and it was complicated, but he couldn’t be happier for the two of them.

He and Ginko made eye contact for an instant and Tatsuya resisted the urge to look away. Instead he gave her a quick head nod in an attempt of being comforting and walked towards the girls.

“Hey, Ginko,” he called. “Will you need me to drop you home?”

“Oh,” she looked uncertain at Tatsuya, and then at Ueda. “No need to. I told my dad I was going to spend the night with friends, so I’ll just go back alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you caught a ride?” Ueda asked, tilting her head.

“No, it’s fine, really! Also, don’t you have something else you need to do, Tatsuya?”

He couldn’t help but look down at his feet when he felt the heat rising to his face. “Ah, well…”

“Oh?”, the blue haired girl chirped in with her singsong voice. “Is that some hot gossip I’m hearing?”

He made an annoyed noise with his throat and the girls giggled. “Why is everyone pestering me about that?”

“That’s just what friends do,” Ginko assured him with questionable degrees of effectiveness. Once again, he groaned.

 

———

 

“Ah, you can leave that to me if you want to,” Hanakouji told him as they started to clean up for the night. She took the plates from him and settled them on the table. “Won’t it get late for your special surprise?”

Tatsuya shaked his head. “It’s ok, I have time to help.”

The girl waved her hand, dismissing his concerns. “Don’t worry about that! You can repay me by working with the newspaper club for one day if you want to.” She sighed. “I could really use the help of someone who has a driver’s license sometimes…”

“…are you sure about that?”

“Of course! Now go have your date.”

“Thank you,” Tatsuya told her. He was about to turn away to call Jun, but he stopped himself for another second. “Eikichi is very lucky to have you, do you know that?”

Hanakouji laughed. “Oh, I’m the one who’s lucky to have them. But that’s just how love is, isn’t it?”

He nodded, giving her a little smile. “Yeah, you’re right.”

 

———

 

“Hm? Going home already?” Anna asked him, reaching a ceasefire with Eikichi for a second. “I didn’t know you obeyed your curfew.”

Tatsuya opened and closed his mouth a couple times, trying to come up with a not too overly incriminating answer. “My curfew isn’t that early,” he said at least. “I want to take Jun to see the Christmas decorations, that’s all.”

Eikichi tilted their head “Didn’t you two already go out to see the lights? Like, before the winter break started.”

“It’s… different this time,” Tatsuya explained, and it seemed to be good enough for them. They shrugged.

“Well, it’s alright for me. Go have your fun, loverboy.”

“Yeah,” Anna said. “Good luck, Tatsuya.”

“Why everyone keeps telling me that?!”

“Oh, I have a feeling you’ll need it, that’s all,” she told him with a small grin on her face. “But don’t you have a date to worry about now?”

He stared at both of their shit-eating smiles and pouted before going away, and in the instant he turned his back to them, Anna and Eikichi resumed their bickering.

 

———

 

To drive away from the city felt weird; the noise, the lights— it all slowly disappeared as they went westward, until the world became still and quiet; Tatsuya liked the silence, but it also was disconcerting.

The road to Mt. Katatsumuri stopped at its base, where it was replaced by the mountain trail and the cable car. He closed his eyes and thanked for the pleasant weather before finding a place to let his motorcycle.

“Well,” Jun said. “You really _are_ full of surprises. I don’t think I would’ve ever thought of coming here.”

“Do you want to go back?” Tatsuya asked with a sudden bout of anxiety gnawing at his stomach, but the boy quickly shook his head.

“No. I’m more curious now, if anything.”

The full moon was bright over their heads, showering the city with light, and he could make out the details in Jun’s face; the slight curvature of the corners of his mouth, the way his eyelids fluttered and how his eyes seemed to reflect the very stars. Tatsuya didn’t know how to put those moments of breathtaking awe into words, so he wanted to show Jun; he extended his hand to the boy and gave him his warmest smile.

“Come on, and don’t let it go, okay?”

There was a heartbeat, and then he could see Jun’s face beaming as he took his arm.

“Of course.”

 

———

 

Tatsuya was used to watching Jun lead and simply following close behind or walking besides him in a comfortable flow that they both created simultaneously, but not to take charge. It was an agreeable rhythm for both parties, but feeling Jun’s hand gradually warm up as he guided him through the forest path made Tatsuya want to do more; if it was for Jun, to give him the same sense of peace and security he gave Tatsuya, he would gladly take the lead, even if with some difficulty.

They walked mostly in silence, exchanging a few words here and there. The moon illuminated their way, filling the path with silvery light, and the quietude from the base of the mountain was replaced by the sounds of the forest that filled the gaps in their conversation. It was only after about half a hour that they reached the clearing.

“Well, we’re here,” Tatsuya said, showing to Jun the view. The boy gasped in surprise and his eyes went wide.

The sky was under them; or rather, the many lights in Sumaru shone like stars: from there, they could see about half of the city; the winding roads of the wards bellow created constellations and its crowded buildings became nebulas. Even from a distance, they could see the cars passing by like comets, but all the noise from the metropolis was far away, as if in another world, and even the blinding lights were pleasing from atop Mt. Katatsumuri.

“It’s beautiful,” Jun told him, breathless. “How did you even _find_ this place?”

Tatsuya shrugged, without being really sure how to reply. “I heard a rumor and decided to check it out. It seemed like the sort of thing you would enjoy, so…”

“Tatsuya, it’s _amazing_ ,” he said with joy and a certain awe in his voice. “I didn’t even know a place like this existed in Sumaru.”

He could feel his heart beat faster and bit his lip.

Suou Tatsuya wasn’t used to leading. In fact, he was the sort of person who would rather go with the crowd; he had difficulty putting his feelings into words and struggled way too much trying to ask a boy out on a date. He probably couldn’t begin to tell Jun how much he meant to him, but it was moments like those, where they held hands and contemplated the infinity, that he understood that he didn’t need to; Jun knew it already, but Tatsuya wanted to say it anyway, even if it wasn’t with words.

He took the plunge.

He could feel Jun’s chapped lips under his chapstick and his mouth tasted like chicken and sugar. They both went rigid for an instant, only to slowly melt as the heat of the kiss spread out through their bodies. Tatsuya cupped the boy’s face, caressing his cheek with his thumb and feeling Jun’s poorly contained breath tickle his skin. He took a miniscule step forward, trying to shorten the distance between them as much as possible, and there was a soft _thump_ as Jun’s gift fell right on top of Tatsuya’s foot, making them both exclaim “ah!” at the same time.

“I’m sorry, I completely forgot about that—”

“No, it’s ok, let me just—”

Jun kneeled and took the package on the floor, offering it to Tatsuya with a bright smile on his lips. Thanks to the moonlight, it was possible to see how much the boy’s face was red and flushed, and Tatsuya felt a certain sense of pride in that. “I guess now is as good a time as any to give you this.” 

“Ah…” he took the gift with a certain reverence and without really knowing how to handle it. He tried to not damage the paper too much as he unwrapped it, and as a result it took him way too long to reveal the book under it.

Tatsuya could faintly make out the constellations highlighted with glitter paint on the hardcover. “A guide for unassisted stargazing,” Jun read outloud as the boy marveled on the gift. “I thought that we could… go out and see the stars together someday. I know that you like them.”

“It’s fantastic,” Tatsuya told him, hugging the book against his chest. “I… I don’t know what to say. It looks expensive, I… thank you, I love it.”

The boy laughed. “It’s the least I could do, seeing what you gave to me,” he said, pointing to Sumaru. Tatsuya shook his head.

“Oh, no. Mine is…” He carefully fished the small and thin box from his coat pocket and handed it to Jun while his heart threatened to explode. “Here.”

“Oh, thank you,” Jun replied while opening it. Tatsuya recognized that he maybe spent too much money on that fountain pen, but the expression in Jun’s face informed him that it was worth it; the pen was golden and dark blue, adorned with rockets and small golden stars. When Jun realized exactly what it was, a soft “ah” left his mouth. “ _Le Petit Prince_.”

“It made me think of you,” he tried to explain. “I wanted to get you flowers too, but I know it’s your favorite book, so I…”

He stumbled on his words, incapable of really saying what he wanted to. God, Anna _was_ right, he had no impulse control; he remembered vividly seeing it on display on Aoba, and before he could really process it, he was quitting the store with the pen on his hands.

A brief kiss on the corner of his mouth completely shut Tatsuya’s brain down. “Thank you. I will cherish it.”

All he could do was smile. “Merry Christmas, Jun.”

Jun’s answer was a short laugh. “Merry Christmas, Tacchi.”

  

> _**December 25th, Christmas** _

There was something warm about Tatsuya, something that warded off the cold bite of winter and didn’t allow it to spread through Jun’s veins. He could be timid and awkward, but he was kind and he cared, and that was everything Jun could ask for. He allowed himself to lie against Tatsuya, basking in his heat, and they both looked at the stars.

According to his clock, Christmas started about five minutes ago, but nothing really changed in the city bellow. The winds started to blow in the direction of the ocean and a couple of lights were turned off, but Sumaru never really slept, not even when everything else was hibernating.

“Thank you for everything,” Jun told Tatsuya, intertwining his fingers with his. “I mean it.”

The boy placed a kiss on the top of his head. “It’s the least I could do for you. I love you.”

“Ah,” that caught him off-guard and made his heart beat faster, but a warm feeling settled on his chest. “Thank you. I love you too.”

They stayed there until the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> — Meanwhile, Katsuya was completely losing his shit because his brother didn't come home that night.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading! I couldn't decide if this was going to be post-IS with a happier ending, post-EP with a happier ending or just a complete AU where everyone is alive, happy and well, so I tried to leave it as ambiguous as possible. This fic got way too out of hand and it shows. I'm very sorry for the delay, and I hope you had amazing holidays. Happy 2019!
> 
> The book that Jun quotes is José Saramago's "Journey to Portugal".
> 
> **Find me on tumblr:** https://21stcenturyhero.tumblr.com


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